Try Your Luck
by Supersilver46
Summary: After seeing her weakness first hand after the mission at Wave and being harshly criticized by Sasuke, a chance encounter leads Sakura down a path that might help her stand side by side with her teammates. But there's something oddly familiar about her new teacher...
1. Chapter 1

_Useless... _Sakura Haruno thought to herself as she stumbled her way down the crowded streets of Konoha. She sniffed pathetically as tears pooled down her face, the words that Sasuke had said to her repeated in her mind over and over again.

"_You're just as bad as Naruto," _He'd said when she'd tried to flirt with him, _"Even his skills are better than yours!"_

The look of contempt on Sasuke's face had been too much for her, she'd already known that she was weak compared to him and Naruto, his words had pierced through her heart like daggers.

**Who does that bastard think he is?! **Inner Sakura growled, **We should go up to him and-**

_And do what? _Sakura sighed, _Sasuke's on a whole other level compared to me, I'd never land a hit on him._

**Well...we could at least try to hit him! **Inner Sakura shouted. **You never know, maybe we'll get lucky!**

Sakura sighed again; Inner Sakura probably wasn't going to let Sauske's insult slide any time soon.

"Huh?" Sakura blinked in confusion as she suddenly found herself standing in an unfamiliar alleyway that had a dead end. She figured that she must have wandered in here when she was arguing with Inner.

"Hello there."

Sakura whirled around to see that three, tall men were blocking the way out of the alleyway. The three men seemed to be identical, their faces were gaunt and bony, their beady eyes were practically shrunk into their skull. They wore white jackets that were zipped all the way up to their necks and white face masks.

"H-hello..." Sakura stuttered. "What do you want?"

"You see my brothers and I were just passing by when we saw you crying," the man in the middle of the group said in a reedy voice, "Naturally we were a bit curious, so we followed you into this alley."

"It broke our heart to see a young girl like you crying her eyes out," The man on the right side of the man in the middle said in a gruff voice, "So we thought that we'd...cheer you up."

It was obvious by the way the man licked his lips that 'cheering her up' was the last thing they were thinking about. Sakura discreetly pulled out a kunai from her pouch, if the men got too close to her then she'd use her remaining kunai for defense.

"Now, now, let's not resort to violence."

Sakura felt someone grip her arm with an extreme amount of force, causing her to drop her kunai to the ground. She turned to see that the man who had been on the left side of the man in the middle had suddenly gotten behind her.

"Like my brother said, we just want to cheer you up," the man behind her whispered into her ear, "If you keep your mouth shut, you might even enjoy it."

"A-"

Before she even had a chance to scream, she felt a sharp jab to her neck. Her vision dimmed as she fell to the ground in a heap.

"Did you really have to do that?" Sakura heard one of the men complain "You aren't supposed to damage the goods."

"Would you have rather let her scream?" the man that had hit her scoffed, "We're trying to be discreet, remember?"

"I guess you've got a point..."

"So how much do you think we'll get for her?" Sakura felt someone run a hand through her hair, "Pink hair's pretty exotic, I bet we can sell her off for 200 ryo, hell we can probably get even more than that!"

"Well we'll have to bring her to the market first," one of the men said, "Then we'll see how much we can get."

_The market? _Sakura thought to herself as she laid on the ground. From the way the men were talking, it sounded like they were planning to sell her off as a slave.

**We're not going to let that happen! **Inner Sakura shouted, **Come on, get up!**

Sakura grit her teeth and tried to push herself off the ground. It was a struggle to get an inch off the ground. Her arms wouldn't stop shaking, and her legs felt like they were made of lead.

"Uh, it looks like she's trying to get back up." one of the men said, "Should we stop her?"

"Don't worry, she's going to fall back down in a moment." the man with the reedy voice said

Sakura's arms gave out underneath her and she fell to the ground.

"See? Didn't I tell you she was a perfect target?"

"I guess you were right, I don't think I've ever seen a Konoha nin this pathetic."

_Useless..._ Tears pooled down Sakura's cheeks, _I'm so useless!_

"Hey!"

Suddenly, another man rushed into the alleyway, he was wearing a green jacket with reddish edges, green shorts, and green lace-up boots.

"Leave her alone." The man said, "Or else I'll-"

"You'll what?" The man that had hit her confidently marched up to the man wearing the green jacket, "I can already tell that you're not a Konoha nin, you're a civilian, so why don't you run along and leave us alone?"

"Even if I'm a civilian, I'm not going to stand by and watch you sell a girl so you can make a quick buck." the man in the green jacket frowned, "People like you aren't anything to worry about anyway."

"W-why you, I'll have you know that I'm a Genin!" The Genin scowled at the man in the green jacket, "That means I can kill a civilian like you in a few seconds!"

"You're a Genin?" The man in the green jacket blinked, "Are they just handing out forehead protectors to anyone these days?"

"Y-you bastard!" The Genin grabbed Sakura's kunai off the ground and thrust it towards the man in the green jacket, "How dare you insult me!"

Sakura closed her eyes tightly; she knew that a civilian would stand no chance against a ninja. Even a rookie Genin could kill a civilian with little effort. The man was going to die trying to protect her, if she wasn't so weak none of this would have happened!

"Agh!"

The pained shout of the Genin caused Sakura to her open her eyes, and she looked up to see that the man in the green jacket had caught the Genin's arm in a vice grip.

"Like I said, people like you aren't anything to worry about." The man said as he tightened his grip on the Genin's arm, causing him to drop Sakura's kunai. "I've met plenty of people like you who could talk a good game, but never back it up."

"Agh, let go of me!" the Genin shouted, "If you keep this up you're going to-"

The man snapped the Genin's arm like a twig, causing the Genin to let out a howl of pain. The man let go of the Genin and turned to look at the other two men, who had huddled together in the back of the alley.

"P-please don't hurt us, we'll turn ourselves in!" One of men stuttered, "We'll even tell ANBU where the market is!"

"You promise?" The man in the green jacket asked.

"Y-yes, we promise!"

"Okay then, but if you break your promise..." the man in the green jacket smirked, "Then I'll hunt you down and kill you."

"Eeek!" The three men shrieked and ran out of the alley.

The man shook his head and turned to Sakura, "Can you get up? Do you need help?"

"I-I can get up." Sakura managed to push herself off the ground and she shakily got to her feet. "Thank you for your help, Mister...?

"You don't have to thank me; I did what any normal person would do." The man smiled, "And you can drop the 'Mister', my name is Gon, Gon Freecss."

_A/N- If you like the story, consider giving it a favorite or a follow. And if there's something you think I need to work on, please tell me in a review of the story._


	2. Chapter 2

After being rescued by Gon, Sakura decided that she do something to thank him. At first, she'd offered him money, but he'd turned her down.

"You don't need to give me money," Gon had said, "I just did what anyone else would do."

"Not a lot of people would've jumped at the chance to help me like you did," Sakura had said, "There must be something I can do to make it up to you!"

Gon's stomach growled, and he sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, there is one way you can make it up to me..."

And that was how she ended up at Ichiraku with Gon. Their waitress, a woman named Ayame, placed a small bowl in front of Sakura and a larger bowl for Gon that was filled with ramen and pork.

"Thank you for the food!" Gon shouted as soon as the bowl of ramen was placed in front of him. He then broke his chopsticks apart and started to spoon the noodles into his mouth. As Sakura watched her rescuer practically inhale his ramen, she couldn't help but be reminded of Naruto.

'**He eats exactly like him too!' **Inner Sakura chimed in.

Gon eventually finished his bowl of ramen and leaned back in his seat. "So Sakura, you're a ninja right?"

"Yeah, but I'm only a Genin though." Sakura said

"Well then why did you let those guys get the jump on you?" Gon asked, "They weren't being subtle when they were following you."

"I...wasn't paying much attention." Sakura said, "You see..."

Before long, Sakura began to tell Gon about everything, she told him about the mission to Wave and how frightened she was during the mission, the way Sasuke had treated her once they had gotten back from Wave, and she told him about her own insecurities. There was just something about Gon that made her feel as though she could trust him, maybe it was because of the earnest way he listened to her when she talked, but Sakura found herself opening up to Gon.

"Well I can see where your teammate is coming from," Gon said, "It sounds like you didn't take being a ninja seriously."

"...You're right." Sakura sighed and looked down at her bowl of ramen. She'd never taken training seriously, she'd completely ignored tajitsu in favor of learning the more practical elements of jutsu. The Wave mission had been her first real combat experience, and she completely and utterly failed.

"Still, that doesn't mean that you're useless."

Sakura's shook her head, "Compared to Naruto and Sasuke, I'm-"

"Well then you'll just need to train," Gon said, "I'm willing to bet that your teammates trained a lot to get to where they are now, all you need to do is to catch up to them."

"But...where would I even start?" Sakura asked, "I don't know what I should even be working on."

"Then you should ask your teacher," Gon said, "If you ask him for advice, he might point you in the right direction."

"I guess." Sakura said as Ayame handed her the bills for Gon and her lunch. Sakura gave the woman the woman 70 ryo in order to pay for the ramen.

"And if he doesn't want to help, I'd be perfectly willing to help you get stronger." Gon said as he got up from his seat."I live on the first floor in the apartment complex that's next to the hospital, if you want to drop by my apartment number is 144."

Gon waved at Sakura. "See you later Sakura!"

Sakura waved back at the man before she got up from her seat and made her way back home. While Gon's offer of training seemed nice, Sakura didn't think that she'd need training right now. After what they had gone through in Wave, Sakura was sure that Kakashi would ease up on them a little bit before thrusting them into another mission. He wouldn't do anything too crazy, right?

.

.

.

"I've decided to enroll you guys in the Chunin Exams!" Kakashi announced once Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke had gotten to the training grounds.

Sakura's eye twitched. Maybe she'd have to take Gon up on his offer after all...


End file.
